Donald Trump falsely claimed at a rally on Sunday that Hillary Clinton wants to let “650 million people pour in” to the US and “triple the size of our country in one week”.

I’m pretty sure this is impossible, purely as a matter of logistics. Trump appears to have married a randomly selected large number of furriners to a randomly selected short time period and ... voila! He did get the math right about the tripling part; I suppose we should be grateful for that.

Sunday, 30 October 2016

I found this explanation of FBI Director Comey’s newfound candor unsurprising:

But what I’m hearing from everybody, I mean, I have some sources in the F.B.I. and the former district attorney’s. The F.B.I. is in full revolt right now. The F.B.I. has been in full revolt since the decisions made last summer.

[...]

All right, a semi-full revolt. Because what I’m getting at is if Comey hadn’t said what he said to Congress and the rest of the world, it would have leaked. It would have leaked. That whole building was ready to leak that they had discovered this new source with Weiner and Abedin. So, I don’t think Comey had much chance here. And I think the F.B.I. is badly divided.

Former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner is cooperating with authorities in the FBI investigation of his laptop that contains emails that prompted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reopen its probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized email server.

The news that Weiner is cooperating, reported by Fox News’ Bret Baier on Sunday, would help law enforcement with the investigation, since officials didn’t yet have a warrant to read through the material found on the device.

Though FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers Friday his agency found emails related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, he didn’t yet have a warrant to read them.

As of Saturday night, the FBI had not received a search warrant from the Justice Department, an unnamed agency official told Yahoo News, but the agency was in talks to get one. When Comey wrote the letter, “he had no idea what was in the content of the emails,” said one official.

This is complicated. Normally, I’d think Weiner has an immunity deal for his pervy stuff as an inducement to squeal, but the Department of Justice is the only source for immunity deals and they are defending Herself, not national security or the rule of law. Weiner may be doing this for pure spite and hatred of his estranged wife’s real love. Finally I have a shred of respect for the man.

First it was security regulations and open government laws. Now it includes building permits and property tax reassessments, reports the New York Times:

It is a necessary evil for any homeowner: a visit to the town building office to obtain the proper permits for upgrades.

Hillary and Bill Clinton apparently skipped that required step when they began ambitiously renovating the house they purchased for $1.16 million this summer in the upscale New York hamlet of Chappaqua, according to records from the town building inspector.

Those records, first reported and posted online by The Journal News, based in White Plains, revealed that the town received a complaint in early October about excavation work at the Clintons’ new home that seemed related to the removal of dead trees. But when an inspector arrived, he noticed that a much bigger project was underway: The home was being renovated, complete with an updated kitchen; a new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system; walls being moved; and the backfilling of a swimming pool with gravel.

Without informing the town to obtain the proper permits, the Clintons apparently set the project in motion soon after they bought the house in August, with an eye toward having everything ready for the holidays.

[...]

The permit process — which comes with fees, inspections and, potentially, elevated property assessments — can be cumbersome and is familiar to the millions of voters who own homes and have made upgrades. Some may be sympathetic to the Clintons’ stumbling on the local regulations, while others could see them as feeling as though the rules do not apply to them.

“Local regulations” which are common to every municipality in the United States, as the Times noted in the first paragraph.

And the Times is required, for some pathetic reason, to include this at the end of a 700-word story.

Mrs. Clinton’s opponent, Donald J. Trump, also has ties to Westchester County, where he owns an estate in Bedford and a golf club in Briarcliff Manor. Last year, Mr. Trump tried to minimize the value of the golf course to save on property taxes.

The Jerry Brown administration’s obsession with becoming a global model for reducing greenhouse gases is leading to an unprecedented drive to completely reshape how Californians live. Rather than focus on more pragmatic, affordable steps to reduce greenhouse gases – more efficient cars, rooftop solar systems and promoting home-based work – the goal increasingly seems like social engineering designed to force Californians to adopt the high-density, transit-oriented future preferred by Brown’s green priesthood.

The newest outrage comes from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research in the form of a proposed “road diet.” This would essentially halt attempts to expand or improve our roads, even when improvements have been approved by voters. This strategy can only make life worse for most Californians, since nearly 85 percent of us use a car to get to work. This in a state that already has among the worst-maintained roads in the country, with two-thirds of them in poor or mediocre condition.

Only one presidential candidate has wielded the sledgehammer of government against personal enemies.

Only one presidential candidate has exploited a spouse’s public office to exact revenge on political dissenters.

Only one presidential candidate has a quarter-century track record of taxpayer-subsidized demagoguery and class warfare.

Donald Trump has never held public office. How would he behave if he had? Based on his business practices and personal behavior, probably a lot like a woman whose exercise of office he effusively praised and supported: the woman described above.